


A Flavorless Delicacy

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [39]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Dvati!Taako and Lup, F/M, Gen, I blame all you delightful enablers, Magnus slots in with Taako and Lup because he is an odd duck, Multi, Not Incest, Per the norm, because people don't understand the difference between / and &, same universe as You Are What You Eat, vague allusions to synthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 06:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: I’ll eat ‘em all, the thoughts of anyone I’ll ever meetJust to make them happyWondering why I’m a burden, or so it seemsAren’t I everything?(Or: Magnus' side of the Dvati!Taako and Lup self-indulgent trash I wrote earlier.)(Alternately: NaNo doesn't exist and no I'm not in denial what the fuck are you talking about?! Grammar is a social construct and also fuck your rules!)





	A Flavorless Delicacy

**Author's Note:**

> Back on my bullshit. Same notes as last. Dvati are beautiful. Please check them out. Title and summary are taken from GHOST's song "Appetite of a People Pleaser" because I am, if anything, predictable garbage. Please check it out. :>
> 
> May go on to do the rest before I noodle with Stolen Century Dvati!Hell Twins. Idk.
> 
> Continue to enable me. Comments fuel my shitty life decisions! Commit. Commit. Commit!

Magnus Burnsides was always an odd duck. That's what they said. "That Magnus Burnsides," they said, "he's an odd duck!" Who are 'they'? Everyone. Everyone Magnus ever encountered found him to be "an odd duck" of one kind or another.

(Some of those kinds involved four letter words and physical violence. Others involved sad stares and handouts. Magnus hates every last one of them, regardless of intent. They all fucking suck. Fuck them.)

So when Magnus "an odd duck" Burnsides joins the IPRE on pure luck, he expects more of the same. He expects pity stares and comments about 'free rides' and 'jock' and 'idiot' and 'meat shield' and 'why is he even here? He can't do magic? What's his fucking purpose?!' He isn't surprised much—apparently even high-end institutes are full of people like that—and buckles down and proves he's worth it but...there are two people that are different.

Their names are Taako and Lup and they're sun elf twins and they treat him like they treat everything else: with complete cat-like disinterest. They observe him from far away at first, gently watching how he reacts to those people and their words and "odd duck". Then they move in and start prodding themselves.

"You're a human, _right_?" Taako—he's the one who has a small mole under his eye and likes to keep his nails long and painted and wears his braid on the left and wrings it when he thinks—asks, his twin standing beside him with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

Magnus nods, watching them wearily as he copies his notes for the fifth time that day. Repetition and mnemonics help the most but sometimes inter-magical bond theory can only be reduced so far. Highlighters arc around his crossed legs in a rainbow only he understands and he color-codes everything with shaking hands. The taste of Taako's inquiry is a pink-tinted purple of sticky caramel and coffee beans ground fresh that lingers smokily on his pallet.

"So why are you alone?" Lup—she's the one who has more freckles on her nose and shoulders and the gap in her teeth is a little offset and her left eye is a slightly darker shade of purple and she pins her hair into a messy bun when she's distracted and chews on the pens she uses to hold it up when she thinks—gestures to the large tree Magnus is underneath alone.

He clenches his teeth. _Odd duck. Odd duck. Odd duck._ Bitter lime drowns out the umami twang of blue-green hazelnut questioning. "Too cool," he lies. Better to lie and believe it than tell the truth and hurt. "Easier to study alone anyway. My pen is too big."

" _I'll bet!_ " Magnus would have to be blind to miss the cheeky wink that Taako shoots his way and his cheeks color. Lup says something to Taako in a language that only sounds like clicking and humming, a song of insect imitations and bird calls, and he titters. "Apparently that upset you," Taako says—in Common, this time—with a somewhat detached but still apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry. Others are weird."

_Odd duck. Odd duck. Odd duck._

"S'fine. My pens _are_ pretty big though!" He winks at Taako and Lup laughs as a darker verdant hue coats his face. "Anyway, that it?"

"For now," Lup waves and says something to Taako in that same chittering tongue. Words that _are not_ sing of silver-grey savory scallops with cilantro and grape. "See you later, human."

Magnus assumes that, much like every other person who ever showed an interest in him, Taako and Lup will lose interest when he continues to remain unaffected. He is never more happy when he's proven wrong.

Taako and Lup cling to things that interest them like mites on dogs and fantasy Velcro and fantasy Gorilla Glue. Magnus interests them. They see something in Magnus that keeps them coming. It only grows when they admit that they're part of the crew to test the bond engine.

"Weird," Magnus hums as Taako plaits his sideburns. "And they chose you and me and _who_ else?"

"Human lady named Lucretia Efi, she's the chronicler. Dwarf dude called Merle Highchurch is cleric and biologist. Human guy named Sildar Hallwinter—"

"Lulu calls him Barry Bluejeans," Taako interrupts, knotting off the braid he's on with a deft twist.

"—he wears _almost nothing_ but _denim_ , Koko. Makes sense, doesn't it? Anyway, he's the science officer-slash-mechanic," Lup waves her hand dismissively, almost sweeping away one of Magnus' carefully organized highlighters. _Almost_. "Last one is a gnome man named Davenport. He's the captain."

"Cap'n'port," Magnus muses aloud, tasting the portmanteau on his tongue. It's a bright orange of lemon rind and acacia honey. Nice.

"Like that one Magnus!" Lup pokes her nose through Magnus' fifth notebook with a deft eye. "Also, misspelled the word 'repertoire' here. The 'O' and 'I' are flipped."

"Thanks. I'll get it on six." He relaxes into their presence. It's easy to slot into the space they make for him. He wonders if it's because they're "odd ducks" too or if it's just how sun elf twins are. _In the end_ , he supposes, _it doesn't matter much._ They're there for him so that's all he's concerned about.

The IPRE makes the seven adventurers chosen for the inter-planar exploration with the new bond engine ship get to know one another and Magnus watches the twins do to them what they did to him in the beginning with a strange fondness.

Lucretia Efi, upon first impression, is quiet and contemplative. _However_ , when Taako and Lup Science her—Magnus has long-since learned their many Proper Words and Science is a _big_ one—she flexes to fit their pokes and prods and pushes back with her own Scienceing. They talk in Twin and tell Magnus they like her a lot so he gets close and learns. She doesn't call him an odd duck and she likes his repetition system and highlighters and his portmanteaus. He likes her journals and long words and smile. Magnus and the twins love her and she slots in nicely for the social things. She has trouble with the physical things like boystacks and cuddle piles. That's fine though. To each their own.

Barry Bluejeans—as Magnus has taken to calling him as well, because it _fucking_ fits _goddammit_ —upon first impression, is like Lucretia and so, _so_ different. When Lup and Taako Science him, he falters and becomes embarrassed. His face gets red and sweaty and he wrings his hands and stammers and pushes up his thick-framed glasses. Lup and Taako move on and Magnus learns that he has good taste in music and likes the concept of battle but has trouble with hand-eye-coordination and is slightly color-blind and helps proof-read Magnus' notes sometimes. While the twins don't say anything more about him—save for a few muttered comments about denim and his _zipper_ —Magnus thinks they more than tolerate him. That's good. He likes Barry and Barry likes him.

Merle Highchurch, upon first impression, is a dad. That's really the only way that Magnus can describe him. He wears shitty clothes, tells bad jokes, smokes a weird amount of pot, tells inappropriately sexual stories about flora, and just _is_ for them. He just is. Taako and Lup's Sciencing is only met with passive movement and a soft smile and they seem taken aback. In the end they invite him into their piles and so on and he puddles into his spot and fills in the cracks no one noticed. Magnus likes how Merle listens to him as is there for him but also won't take his shit. That's a Good. A _Very Good._

Cap'n'port is everything he seems to be at first. He is a captain, a leader, a strong presence but also he is a shoulder to cry on, a drinking buddy, and a _damn_ good card player. Taako and Lup try to Science him but Cap'n'port resists their Scienceing by just continuing as he is. It befuddles them but they accept it as Other. They still say he's Good though, so Magnus breathes easy.

The StarBlazter team is nothing but "odd ducks". This brings Magnus joy. "Odd duck" no longer hurts but the sight and lack of sound as what Taako and Lup call Wrong devouring their home plane sends him into a quiet shock and it takes time for him to readjust. After that, Taako and Lup and Cap'n'port and Merle and Barry and Lucretia are more to Magnus than just friends. They're his _everything_.

Time is flux and weird and stupid and "well _fuck me_ I guess, what am I, like _eighty_?" for the lone crew of the StarBlazter. Creesh and Barry and Magnus feel it the most—humans are young and die young and they are human—but Merle and Cap'n'port remark on the lack of wear as well. Taako and Lup, much like they do with all things, shrug and move on. Elves live ostensibly forever anyway. Time is garbage words and clocks and shadows. But their humans and dwarf and gnome being unaffected makes them happy so Magnus doesn't talk about grey hairs that never come in or crows feet that never appear or the way his heart aches like its a million years old but his lungs pump like they're still only twenty. And a hundred years comes and goes and Magnus and the twins Forget. They _all_ do. All but Lucretia, who bears the weight of a hundred years of running and horror and one year of "we did this to this world what have we wrought?" alone while taking care of a broken captain and trying to reclaim their seven mistakes to combine and destroy the Hunger with.

Magnus becomes "an odd duck" and the citrus bile of "please don't please please please don't say that _please_!" comes back and he cries and rails and is worth nothing because _odd duck odd duck odd duck!_ He seeks to fill a hole that he doesn't understand he's looking for. He wants to slot in with others and after Julia—fire and Kalen and _hate_ fucking _destroy_ this man who ruined and hurt and stole _that bully_ that _fucker_ —he can't find them. Then there's Merle the deadbeat cleric and faithless dad and Taako the singular elf with rippling and unfettered magic that tears and reaches for something that does not answer. Magnus slips into their niche and it is warmth and love and saccharine daisy yellow that tastes of honeydew and habanero, a bite of nostalgia for a thing he doesn't understand. He feels safe and whole and complete and "odd duck" fades to the memory of lime zest and biting wormwood.

(When Magnus remembers and understands not only Twin and Other and Us once more but also suddenly the sheer weight of what Lucretia did presses down with gravitas, he feels happy and this scares him. Phrases echo in his head and he hums to color rainbows with words in his mind.)

(And he swallows as his heart beats one last time and Julia smiles with "odd duck" on her lips. It does not sting but still tastes of warm citrus. Perhaps this one is made of a chocolate orange.)


End file.
